Coffs Harbour, Byron Bay and Surfer's Paradise

Tuesday..

Oops! I am getting sorta behind! Time to catch up..
Tuesday I was signed up to sew/quilt in this “improvisational curves” workshop. Instead I did three loads of laundry to get all of Mom’s and my clothes clean and then down to the pool. How nice to relax! This trip has been wonderful but extremely busy! I had the pool to myself. There wasn’t a soul in sight. How relaxing.. I believe I finished book # 4 and started #5 on this day! Between the airplane/bus and nighttime/morning (while Mom runs) reading, I am running out of stuff to read. Back to the pool... lol...all this pool needed was an open swim up bar...and an all inclusive wristband. Unfortunately because its “fall” the bar wasn’t open... not surprised since I was the only one using the pool! And it was probably just about as hot as Cuba too.. warmer than the windy days anyways! I would have preferred lying on the beach here but there weren’t any chairs..
I met up with mom in her workshop just before lunch to see what I was missing and then we went and ate and I went back to my book by the pool (and my water bottle..) and she went back to curve designing.. At 3 she musta decided she was jealous of my sunny state and she came and joined me.. with a pina coloda from the restaurant  mmm.
At about 6 we went for supper and I had lamb.. on a Fred Flinstone bone! And a really yummy coconut and passion fruit desert with these baked meringue cookies in it.. hard to describe – not hard to eat at all 
Wednesday
Up early today – the concierge needed our bags outside our rooms at 7. I thought that was dumb –couldn’t I haul my own bags down to the bus at 8:30? Turns out my bags sat outside our room until 8 anyways.. grr.. On the bus by 8:30 and hitting the road to the Gold Coast – first stop was a town I like to call Maclain.. and Mom thinks it was Clarence.. either way.. tiny Podunk type place where we stopped for a “comfort” break on the way from Coff’s Harbour to Byron Bay. Maclain is Scottish and the neat thing about this town is that all their power poles are painted with clan tartans. As our stop was at the info centre I was able to read on the wall there where to find the specific tartans for each clan. There were 3 Cameron poles.. 2 were Cameron of Lochiel (sp?) and the 3rd was something else. I decided that not only do I need to brush up on Canadian history.. but maybe also family history.. ie. What Cameron clan are we from?
Have I mentioned that the rivers here are either HUGE or non-existant? I seriously haven’t seen a river yet that you couldn’t take a houseboat or similar sized something up. It would be no fun for river boating AT all. I noticed in once place people were actually out on the river with their “lake” boat and wakeboarding! Looked like fun..
We only had a short stop in Byron Bay.. which was unfortunate. This is one of the first places that really excited me! It’s a bit of a “hippy” (for lack of a better word) type place but it is exactly what I expected Australia to be like. We had an hour to explore. Ya.. 30 mins for a “comfort pee” back in Maclain and only an hour in a place I really wanted to see!! Grr.. We walked up the street towards the beach deciding that we would spend all our time exploring and then pick up something quick to eat for lunch on our way back to the bus. All the stores along here were great and totally cute. One store even had a ladybug surfboard for any of you that might be looking for one! Lol.. Neat hats, cute clothes, roxy, quicksilver, billabong.. etc plus fun bathing suit cover ups.. and like 10 places I would love to go and eat at. The beach here was awesome.. well you can see that on my last post.. I took that pic from the bus as we were driving up this big hill to the lighthouse (see other pic). Spectacular view! I have a few more pics of the beach from closer up as well.
Next Stop.. Surfers Paradise! And paradise it is.. 70km of golden sandy beaches.. There is seriously beach as far as you can see in either direction. Our hotel for three nights here is the Mantra Legends and it is about a 1 min walk from the beach. It also has an infinity pool that is quite nice. Mom and I jumped off the bus, were first in line to check in to our room and back out on the beach in like 5 min.. then we walked for like an hour. This beach is nice to walk on because about half the width of it stays damp and “hard” so your feet don’t sink in.. We walked until we decided it might be getting dark and maybe we should turn around. About halfway back we found a nice little mall that we explored and then there is street that is just for walking down that has bars/restaurants on either side – so we had a beer and dinner. By this time it was dark and I was still in my tank top and it wasn’t a tad chilly. Very nice..
Thursday
Today is our “day off”. The only thing that was preplanned for us today is supper. We are going to the “Australian Outback Show” tonight.. and it sounds like a western/Aussie version of those medieval places where you eat and cheer the fight or whatever is happening in front of you.. Should be interesting – we go there at 5 I think.
This morning after Mom’s run and breakfast we went straight back to the beach. No chairs on this one either.. but we snagged a couple towels from the hotel and went and hung out on the sand. I went for a swim too. The tide was coming in so we eventually had to get up and get our stuff moved so we headed back to the hotel to check out the pool there.
For lunch we headed back to our “restaurant street” and had these really good salads and drinks..mmm.. icecream for dessert and now I am sitting on the balcony of our room typing up my blog. I can see the beach from here and it looks like there is a surfing school going on down there. I will have to post some pics of this beach too.. although it is hard to capture the greatness of it as it is soo big!
Later 